Frequently Asked Questions

Cylon Consulting delivers managed IT services, cyber security and document management solutions that help businesses operate efficiently and securely.

We strengthen your existing technology investments while ensuring your infrastructure and information systems remain reliable, protected and aligned with your business objectives.

Document management, though vital for business success, is only the beginning. If you just manage certain documents within a specific repository, you cannot gain the full benefits of true efficiency.

M-Files lets you go beyond traditional document management. You can find, manage and share documents and other information such as cases, quality deviations, and audit findings across all systems and repositories and utilize any platform set-up: on-premises, cloud or hybrid. And you can benefit from smart and automated information management based on artificial intelligence, all while enjoying the ease of use of one, common user interface and user experience. This is the M-Files approach to managing documents and we call it Intelligent Information Management.

  1. Reduce paper – a document management system allows you to store your data in an electronic format – Learn how to realize a paperless office.
  2. Find your content more easily – with a proper DMS, you can find documents quickly and efficiently, even across different systems and repositories.
  3. Keep track of document versions – keep track of all changes, see who has edited the content, and easily roll back to an earlier version when necessary.
  4. Add workflows to your content – automate office work with workflows that support your business processes and let your employees focus on more value-adding tasks.
  5. Find content based on what it is rather than where it is stored – M-Files document management is metadata driven, which means you no longer need to worry about where information is stored

In any business, you need to make sure that the right people and the right people only, have access to certain documents. Managing user and access rights in a traditional folder-based structure takes resources and requires manual work, particularly when there are changes in the organization.

M-Files document management system offers a better and more effortless way.

Access rights in M-Files are dynamic and based on metadata. Rights can be based on any number of criteria, like document type, the project or case it relates to, or the workflows state. When changes occur within the organization or workgroups, the permissions automatically change as well. Documents are always available to the right people.

These automated role-based user rights let your IT department focus on supporting the business rather than manually updating users’ access rights.

Filing the documents so that your colleagues can find them can be a hassle. It is impossible to know if your colleague saved the contract in the customer folder, project folder, or to the agreements folder.

In M-Files DMS documents are always saved to the vault repository and described with metadata attributes. Instead of selecting the folder, you just need to know the type of the document you are saving and tag it to the right customer or project.

You can organize content by creating dynamic views that list the documents and other information based on any criteria: by customer, by project, by expiration date, by document type, or by author, for example. The shortcut to your “Latest documents” allows you to find the documents you’ve been working with very quickly. Additionally, all content is indexed for full-text search.

In a traditional folder-based set-up, managing document versions can be a real pain. One version is in the network folder, one is in your email inbox, one is on someone else’s desktop, and so forth.

With M-Files document management system, you always have one single current version of any document. Everyone works with the same version and the version history is automatically saved. So, once you find the document you need, you always know it’s the latest version.

With M-Files, collaboration and sharing information with colleagues, partners, customers and other external parties is easy and efficient.

You can share a link to the file in M-Files without sending an actual copy of the file, which guarantees everyone has access to the one, common version. These links can even be shared with external people who don’t have M-Files.

Integrated collaboration tools, such as annotations, make co-authoring easy and efficient. And you can use any device, even mobile, to collaborate on documents.

Document management is typically a business enabler, not the core business itself. Therefore, it is beneficial to automate it as much as possible to let employees work with something profitable.

M-Files document management system allows you to stop working for information and rather, puts information to work for you.

You can set up automatic workflows to support your business processes and let the system take care of the whole document management life cycle.

The need to access and manage documents doesn’t always come conveniently during office hours.

M-Files works with any device, allowing you to access and work with documents in e.g. network folders using your mobile device. Having unprecedented access to relevant information through M‑Files offers agility throughout your business processes, even if you’re offline.

Document management, though vital for business success, is only the beginning. If you just manage certain documents within a specific repository, you cannot gain the full benefits of true efficiency.

M-Files lets you go beyond traditional document management. You can find, manage and share documents and other information such as cases, quality deviations, and audit findings across all systems and repositories and utilize any platform set-up: on-premises, cloud or hybrid. And you can benefit from smart and automated information management based on artificial intelligence, all while enjoying the ease of use of one, common user interface and user experience. This is the M-Files approach to managing documents and we call it Intelligent Information Management.

Leveraging artificial intelligence, M-Files distinguishes business-critical data from clutter and allows users to focus on the information that matters most while automating office work.

M-Files provides an intuitive user experience on PC, mobile, and many web-based systems, such as SharePointGoogle G Suite and Salesforce CRM. This enables you to operate your daily information and document management within a single view and to integrate business data with documents and content. You can enjoy all the benefits of intelligent information management while using tools familiar to you.  

As a result, organizations can manage information more efficiently and more securely. This allows employees to be more flexible and productive in their work while still adhering to guidelines and regulations, helping the business gain a competitive advantage while maintaining regulatory compliance.

What is Document Management?

Document management, though vital for business success, is only the beginning. If you just manage certain documents within a specific repository, you cannot gain the full benefits of true efficiency.

M-Files lets you go beyond traditional document management. You can find, manage and share documents and other information such as cases, quality deviations, and audit findings across all systems and repositories and utilize any platform set-up: on-premises, cloud or hybrid. And you can benefit from smart and automated information management based on artificial intelligence, all while enjoying the ease of use of one, common user interface and user experience. This is the M-Files approach to managing documents and we call it Intelligent Information Management.

  1. Reduce paper – a document management system allows you to store your data in an electronic format – Learn how to realize a paperless office.
  2. Find your content more easily – with a proper DMS, you can find documents quickly and efficiently, even across different systems and repositories.
  3. Keep track of document versions – keep track of all changes, see who has edited the content, and easily roll back to an earlier version when necessary.
  4. Add workflows to your content – automate office work with workflows that support your business processes and let your employees focus on more value-adding tasks.
  5. Find content based on what it is rather than where it is stored – M-Files document management is metadata driven, which means you no longer need to worry about where information is stored

In any business, you need to make sure that the right people and the right people only, have access to certain documents. Managing user and access rights in a traditional folder-based structure takes resources and requires manual work, particularly when there are changes in the organization.

M-Files document management system offers a better and more effortless way.

Access rights in M-Files are dynamic and based on metadata. Rights can be based on any number of criteria, like document type, the project or case it relates to, or the workflows state. When changes occur within the organization or workgroups, the permissions automatically change as well. Documents are always available to the right people. 

These automated role-based user rights let your IT department focus on supporting the business rather than manually updating users’ access rights.

Filing the documents so that your colleagues can find them can be a hassle. It is impossible to know if your colleague saved the contract in the customer folder, project folder, or to the agreements folder.

In M-Files DMS documents are always saved to the vault repository and described with metadata attributes. Instead of selecting the folder, you just need to know the type of the document you are saving and tag it to the right customer or project.

You can organize content by creating dynamic views that list the documents and other information based on any criteria: by customer, by project, by expiration date, by document type, or by author, for example. The shortcut to your “Latest documents” allows you to find the documents you’ve been working with very quickly. Additionally, all content is indexed for full-text search.

In a traditional folder-based set-up, managing document versions can be a real pain. One version is in the network folder, one is in your email inbox, one is on someone else’s desktop, and so forth.

With M-Files document management system, you always have one single current version of any document. Everyone works with the same version and the version history is automatically saved. So, once you find the document you need, you always know it’s the latest version. 

With M-Files, collaboration and sharing information with colleagues, partners, customers and other external parties is easy and efficient.

You can share a link to the file in M-Files without sending an actual copy of the file, which guarantees everyone has access to the one, common version. These links can even be shared with external people who don’t have M-Files.

Integrated collaboration tools, such as annotations, make co-authoring easy and efficient. And you can use any device, even mobile, to collaborate on documents.

Document management is typically a business enabler, not the core business itself. Therefore, it is beneficial to automate it as much as possible to let employees work with something profitable.

M-Files document management system allows you to stop working for information and rather, puts information to work for you.

You can set up automatic workflows to support your business processes and let the system take care of the whole document management life cycle. 

The need to access and manage documents doesn’t always come conveniently during office hours.

M-Files works with any device, allowing you to access and work with documents in e.g. network folders using your mobile device. Having unprecedented access to relevant information through M‑Files offers agility throughout your business processes, even if you’re offline. 

Document management, though vital for business success, is only the beginning. If you just manage certain documents within a specific repository, you cannot gain the full benefits of true efficiency.

M-Files lets you go beyond traditional document management. You can find, manage and share documents and other information such as cases, quality deviations, and audit findings across all systems and repositories and utilize any platform set-up: on-premises, cloud or hybrid. And you can benefit from smart and automated information management based on artificial intelligence, all while enjoying the ease of use of one, common user interface and user experience. This is the M-Files approach to managing documents and we call it Intelligent Information Management

Leveraging artificial intelligence, M-Files distinguishes business-critical data from clutter and allows users to focus on the information that matters most while automating office work.

M-Files provides an intuitive user experience on PC, mobile, and many web-based systems, such as SharePointGoogle G Suite and Salesforce CRM. This enables you to operate your daily information and document management within a single view and to integrate business data with documents and content. You can enjoy all the benefits of intelligent information management while using tools familiar to you.  

As a result, organizations can manage information more efficiently and more securely. This allows employees to be more flexible and productive in their work while still adhering to guidelines and regulations, helping the business gain a competitive advantage while maintaining regulatory compliance.

Contract management or contract administration is the management of contractsmade with customers, vendors, partners, or employees.

An important purpose of contract management software is to streamline administrative tasks and reduce overhead by providing a single, unified view of each contract’s processes.

In any business (small to enterprise), contract management software can be used to manage a new contract request, capture data related to the contract, document authoring, contract creation, negotiation, execution, post signature management and renewal/terminate. The software can then follow the contract as it goes through the review and approval process, providing documentation for digital signatures and execution of the contract, including post-execution tracking and commitments management. Contract Lifecycle Management software not only provides business owners with better visibility into the status of a specific contract, it also facilitates reporting and compliance.Our software solutions will provide business owners with alert notifications for critical dates that affect a contract, such as the cut-off date for contract renewal or the contract’s end of life date.

Organisations in both the public and private sectors are facing increasing pressure to reduce costs and improve financial and operational performance and improve compliance. New regulatory requirements, globalisation, increases in contract volumes and complexity have resulted in an increasing recognition of the importance and benefits of effective Contract Lifecycle Management System.

  • Visibility – Without easy access to contracts, procurement teams and contract managers risk eroding the value of agreements. M-Files unifies contracts and contract data into a unified view to make sure that everyone collaborates on the same version.
  • Control – M-Files maintains a full audit history and version control. Automatic permissions ensure that only authorized users have access to the data. On the buy side, organizations can achieve higher savings by reducing “off contract” spending by tracking rebates and ensuring that negotiated savings are captured.
  • Efficiency – Automating contract management increases efficiency and streamlines processes. In M‑Files CM, automatic workflows seamlessly move contracts through their lifecycle and consistently keep staff updated on new tasks using notifications and assignments (i.e. pending signatures).
  • Initiate and request: Contract templates can be used to streamline the initiation process. Manage a library of approved and versioned contract templates.
  • Draft and negotiate: During the drafting and negotiation process, drafts are version controlled. Microsoft Office and Office 365 integration fosters collaboration.
  • Review and approve: Flexible workflows allow multi-step reviews and approvals.
  • Sign electronically: Documents can be signed using the eSignature capabilities of DocuSign or the M-Files Mobile App.
  • Execute: Milestones, obligations and issues are managed with automated assignments and notifications.
  • Manage: Contracts are indexed with key metadata such as clients, projects, or properties to help organize content dynamically. Amendments, attachments and other related documents can be linked to the main contract and dynamic dashboards track status, expirations and other milestones.
  • Search and retrieve: Advanced search and flexible views ensure fast contract retrieval.
  • Renew and archive: Automate manual renewal and archival process. On the sell side, alerts on expiration dates allow more time to upsell and cross-sell.
What is Contract Management?

Contract management or contract administration is the management of contractsmade with customers, vendors, partners, or employees.

An important purpose of contract management software is to streamline administrative tasks and reduce overhead by providing a single, unified view of each contract’s processes.

In any business (small to enterprise), contract management software can be used to manage a new contract request, capture data related to the contract, document authoring, contract creation, negotiation, execution, post signature management and renewal/terminate. The software can then follow the contract as it goes through the review and approval process, providing documentation for digital signatures and execution of the contract, including post-execution tracking and commitments management. Contract Lifecycle Management software not only provides business owners with better visibility into the status of a specific contract, it also facilitates reporting and compliance.Our software solutions will provide business owners with alert notifications for critical dates that affect a contract, such as the cut-off date for contract renewal or the contract’s end of life date.

Organisations in both the public and private sectors are facing increasing pressure to reduce costs and improve financial and operational performance and improve compliance. New regulatory requirements, globalisation, increases in contract volumes and complexity have resulted in an increasing recognition of the importance and benefits of effective Contract Lifecycle Management System.

Visibility – Without easy access to contracts, procurement teams and contract managers risk eroding the value of agreements. M-Files unifies contracts and contract data into a unified view to make sure that everyone collaborates on the same version.

Control – M-Files maintains a full audit history and version control. Automatic permissions ensure that only authorized users have access to the data. On the buy side, organizations can achieve higher savings by reducing “off contract” spending by tracking rebates and ensuring that negotiated savings are captured.

Efficiency – Automating contract management increases efficiency and streamlines processes. In M‑Files CM, automatic workflows seamlessly move contracts through their lifecycle and consistently keep staff updated on new tasks using notifications and assignments (i.e. pending signatures).

Initiate and request: Contract templates can be used to streamline the initiation process. Manage a library of approved and versioned contract templates.
Draft and negotiate: During the drafting and negotiation process, drafts are version controlled. Microsoft Office and Office 365 integration fosters collaboration.
Review and approve: Flexible workflows allow multi-step reviews and approvals.
Sign electronically: Documents can be signed using the eSignature capabilities of DocuSign or the M-Files Mobile App.
Execute: Milestones, obligations and issues are managed with automated assignments and notifications.
Manage: Contracts are indexed with key metadata such as clients, projects, or properties to help organize content dynamically. Amendments, attachments and other related documents can be linked to the main contract and dynamic dashboards track status, expirations and other milestones.
Search and retrieve: Advanced search and flexible views ensure fast contract retrieval.
Renew and archive: Automate manual renewal and archival process. On the sell side, alerts on expiration dates allow more time to upsell and cross-sell.

Quality management is the act of overseeing adherance to processes, complaince and certification of tasks needed to maintain a desired level of excellence.

Organizations require quality management software to support compliance with ISO 9001, ISO/IEC 27001, ISO 13485, ISO 27002, FDA 21 CFR Part 11, EU GMP Annex 11, and many others.

Document control

  • Organize and manage all quality documents, such as Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), policies and work instructions with complete major/minor version history, automatic permissions, built-in annotation and redlining, eSigning, configurable workflows, several publishing options and unprecedented ease of use.
  • Manage a single key document in several languages simultaneously, with dedicated workflows for both document creation and translation. Great for global policies, user guides, patient material etc.
  • Provide controlled printing with printout copy stamping and tracking of controlled printouts.
  • Ensure that quality documents are actually learned by the correct personnel.

Training and learning

M-Files QMS provides a truly unique, real life problem solving training solution that tracks not just all the training records you have, but also the ones you should have.

  • Elevate any content, such as quality documents and courses, into mandatory learning material for selected staff. Define the learners via any HR property, role or group membership.
  • Automate: System automatically calculates and constantly updates a personal training to-do list for every person, including a full induction training list for the new employee.
  • Extend training requirements to personnel without login access to M-Files QMS system, such as factory workers, temporary staff and subcontractors.
  • Build up-to-date reports on training performance or pending and overdue training requirements.

Quality assurance, audits and deviations

  • Manage audits and inspections, and efficiently record and process deviations, audit findings and risks.
  • Easily store all audit records, files and email correspondence.
  • Ensure corrective actions are actually completed in due time – and not forgotten in memos, spreadsheets or emails.

Personnel

  • Assign role-based access rights and track experience and skills for employees and subcontractors.
  • Extend learning and qualification requirements to any personnel, including external persons with no login access to the M-Files QMS system.

Periodic task automation

Automate recurring tasks and processes and capture auditable evidence of all task completion with comprehensive task handling capabilities.

Inventory, lists and registries

Build and manage company-specific inventories and lists, including software and hardware inventories, with full version history.

Signature management

M-Files Quality Management Software provides a rich set of approval and signing options from single-click workflow approval all the way to Part 11 compliant eSigning or legally binding digital signatures. Read this white paper to learn more – M-Files Approval and Signing Solutions.

Watch video: Learn how to simplify and streamline document approvals with digital signatures.

Other features

  • PDF overlay processing, watermarking and content protection with certificates.
  • Calendar view with integrated scheduling and follow-up reminders.
  • Ensure sensitive documents exclusively remain in the M-Files QMS system with the Print and Download Prevention feature.
  • Pharmaceutical and life sciences, including medical devices, biotechnology, health tech, diagnostics and CROs
  • Petrochemicals and any process-related manufacturing
  • Food and beverage
  • Transportation, aviation, automotive and off-shore
  • Energy, mining and more
What is Quality Management?

Quality management is the act of overseeing adherance to processes, complaince and certification of tasks needed to maintain a desired level of excellence.

Organizations require quality management software to support compliance with ISO 9001, ISO/IEC 27001, ISO 13485, ISO 27002, FDA 21 CFR Part 11, EU GMP Annex 11, and many others.

Document control

  • Organize and manage all quality documents, such as Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), policies and work instructions with complete major/minor version history, automatic permissions, built-in annotation and redlining, eSigning, configurable workflows, several publishing options and unprecedented ease of use.
  • Manage a single key document in several languages simultaneously, with dedicated workflows for both document creation and translation. Great for global policies, user guides, patient material etc.
  • Provide controlled printing with printout copy stamping and tracking of controlled printouts.
  • Ensure that quality documents are actually learned by the correct personnel.

 

Training and learning

M-Files QMS provides a truly unique, real life problem solving training solution that tracks not just all the training records you have, but also the ones you should have.

  • Elevate any content, such as quality documents and courses, into mandatory learning material for selected staff. Define the learners via any HR property, role or group membership.
  • Automate: System automatically calculates and constantly updates a personal training to-do list for every person, including a full induction training list for the new employee.
  • Extend training requirements to personnel without login access to M-Files QMS system, such as factory workers, temporary staff and subcontractors.
  • Build up-to-date reports on training performance or pending and overdue training requirements.

 

Quality assurance, audits and deviations

  • Manage audits and inspections, and efficiently record and process deviations, audit findings and risks.
  • Easily store all audit records, files and email correspondence.
  • Ensure corrective actions are actually completed in due time – and not forgotten in memos, spreadsheets or emails.

 

Personnel

  • Assign role-based access rights and track experience and skills for employees and subcontractors.
  • Extend learning and qualification requirements to any personnel, including external persons with no login access to the M-Files QMS system.

 

Periodic task automation

Automate recurring tasks and processes and capture auditable evidence of all task completion with comprehensive task handling capabilities.

Inventory, lists and registries

Build and manage company-specific inventories and lists, including software and hardware inventories, with full version history.

Signature management

M-Files Quality Management Software provides a rich set of approval and signing options from single-click workflow approval all the way to Part 11 compliant eSigning or legally binding digital signatures. Read this white paper to learn more – M-Files Approval and Signing Solutions.

Watch video: Learn how to simplify and streamline document approvals with digital signatures.

Other features

  • PDF overlay processing, watermarking and content protection with certificates.
  • Calendar view with integrated scheduling and follow-up reminders.
  • Ensure sensitive documents exclusively remain in the M-Files QMS system with the Print and Download Prevention feature.
  • Pharmaceutical and life sciences, including medical devices, biotechnology, health tech, diagnostics and CROs
  • Petrochemicals and any process-related manufacturing
  • Food and beverage
  • Transportation, aviation, automotive and off-shore
  • Energy, mining and more

Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) provide your employees with a reference to common business practices, activities and tasks. Ensure your workforce has access to only the most current SOP versions and ensure the appropriate individuals have read them with M-Files.

Controlling and governing your company’s records throughout their entire life-cycle is critical to ensure compliance with legal and operational obligations. With M-Files, information governance is a snap — you can easily manage records from the point at which they are conceived to their eventual archival and possible disposal. 

Thoroughly remedying a manufacturing issue or nonconformance by initiating a corrective and preventative action (CAPA) is critical for ensuring high quality and staying compliant. M-Files enables you to organize and manage all quality-related documents (like SOPs) and associated processes, such as CAPAs.

The day-to-day operations of your business rely heavily on efficiently managing and processing accounting documents like invoices, receipts, purchase orders, financial statements and tax documents. M-Files lets you take control of accounting documentation, helping you increase performance and competitiveness while improving operational efficiency and avoiding risk.

Collaboration with coworkers, suppliers, partners and other interest groups in a unified, managed way can be a challenge. With M-Files, however, you can easily manage all the documents and the whole life cycle of your business processes with internal and external parties. You focus on your business while M-Files automates your processes.

Providing employees with quick access to up-to-date information that resides within your various internal business applications and databases is challenging. M-Files eliminates information silos and breaks down the barriers between your employees and their information. Structured data and unstructured content is freed from the confines of applications, platforms and information silos.

Your business relies on fast access to up-to-date content to make smarter and faster decisions to stay ahead of the competition. From documents to images, videos, audio files and everything in between, M-Files eliminates content chaos by providing an easy to use solution that enables your employees to quickly locate the exact content they need.

Use M-Files Automated Workflows to streamline common business processes (like contract approvalscontrolled contentinvoicing, etc.), stay productive, and ensure compliance. Watch this video and discover how M-Files automatically monitors each step of the workflow process and sends a notification when there’s something that needs to be handled. It’s simple, quick, and built in to M-Files.

What is Standard Operating Procedures (SOP)?

Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) provide your employees with a reference to common business practices, activities and tasks. Ensure your workforce has access to only the most current SOP versions and ensure the appropriate individuals have read them with M-Files. 

Controlling and governing your company’s records throughout their entire life-cycle is critical to ensure compliance with legal and operational obligations. With M-Files, information governance is a snap — you can easily manage records from the point at which they are conceived to their eventual archival and possible disposal. 

Thoroughly remedying a manufacturing issue or nonconformance by initiating a corrective and preventative action (CAPA) is critical for ensuring high quality and staying compliant. M-Files enables you to organize and manage all quality-related documents (like SOPs) and associated processes, such as CAPAs.

The day-to-day operations of your business rely heavily on efficiently managing and processing accounting documents like invoices, receipts, purchase orders, financial statements and tax documents. M-Files lets you take control of accounting documentation, helping you increase performance and competitiveness while improving operational efficiency and avoiding risk. 

Collaboration with coworkers, suppliers, partners and other interest groups in a unified, managed way can be a challenge. With M-Files, however, you can easily manage all the documents and the whole life cycle of your business processes with internal and external parties. You focus on your business while M-Files automates your processes. 

Providing employees with quick access to up-to-date information that resides within your various internal business applications and databases is challenging. M-Files eliminates information silos and breaks down the barriers between your employees and their information. Structured data and unstructured content is freed from the confines of applications, platforms and information silos.

Your business relies on fast access to up-to-date content to make smarter and faster decisions to stay ahead of the competition. From documents to images, videos, audio files and everything in between, M-Files eliminates content chaos by providing an easy to use solution that enables your employees to quickly locate the exact content they need.

Use M-Files Automated Workflows to streamline common business processes (like contract approvalscontrolled contentinvoicing, etc.), stay productive, and ensure compliance. Watch this video and discover how M-Files automatically monitors each step of the workflow process and sends a notification when there’s something that needs to be handled. It’s simple, quick, and built in to M-Files.

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Our team is here to help. Whether you need guidance, advice, or want to see how Cylon’s solutions can work for your business, we’re happy to chat. Reach out today and get the answers you need.